


Nights In White Satin

by HyperKey (Sylverstia), Sylverstia



Series: Hanging by a thread [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 06:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylverstia/pseuds/HyperKey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylverstia/pseuds/Sylverstia
Summary: The RK800 -60 survived against all odds.Confused and disoriented, he almost runs into a car.





	Nights In White Satin

**Author's Note:**

> I worked a week on this. I know i have other fics to work on but this has been ghosting in my head for weeks.  
> And now i wrote it.  
> One of my longest oneshots ever. Ho boy.
> 
> Would really enjoy some feedback on this, no matter how short it is.  
> Thank you!
> 
> Would also thank Kheios for beta-reading the first few pages of it and everyone who tried to help me decide on a name...  
> only to let them all down xD
> 
> Please enjoy!

When the emergency brake light flicked on, she barely had the mind to hold on to the steering wheel. Never in a million years had thought about an automated car getting into a crash without another car involved, but when she saw the figure lit up by her headlights, she held her breath.

When it crossed her mind to disengage autopilot and swerve the car by herself, the figure had lurched into the ditch on the side of the road.

And she sat in her car, lights blinking, heart racing. Trying to process what had just happened.

She had almost killed a man.

The _car_ had almost run over a man.

With numb fingers she clicked her seatbelt out of the buckle and slowly opened her door.

It was cold, wind whipping into her light dress. The birthday party she was driving home from seemed surreal now. Her feet still had blisters from the new shoes, there was still the papercut on her thumb. But all of that seemed so insignificant now.

Blinking she tried to remember what one would do in such a situation.

“Check on the person…” She muttered to herself and activated her phone’s flashlight.

The ditch was steep, dead weeds knee high. The water rushing. Had it rained?

Craning her neck didn’t really help her see anything. There was the obvious gap in the weeds to show where the person had fallen to, but she couldn’t see anyone.

For a split second she wondered if she had imagined it, then she noticed a flash of red a few feet further down.

A light. Round. A ring. LED.

Her heart skipped a beat.

An android. She never wanted to interact with one again after she had left her job.

But red was bad. Red could mean a lot of things.

“…Are you damaged?” She asked, louder this time. Trying to get his attention. “I know a technician, I can help-“

Although, she assumed that her siblings were both asleep by now. And with her sister living all the way up in Canada, maybe it was better to alert her brother to this and call it a night.

She didn’t really want to do anything with it. She preferred staying with humans, and interacting with them instead of machines.

The figure jumped up, charged at her, made her reel back with a scream. For a few seconds they both stood there, staring at each other. Would he lash out at her like the android had done before she decided to quit her job at cyberlife?

She was ready to call the police when the android sank to its knees and landed in a heap.

“…. Oh great.” She cursed. “You scared me! Don’t do that!”

It was a male, a model she wasn’t familiar with. A face she hadn’t designed. Given, she hadn’t worked at cyberlife for long enough to design many faces. There was a gray jacket, dark jeans, white dress shirt, a partially undone tie and a gash that ran from his forehead down to his neck and a hole in his forehead.

Looked pretty fancy for a regular model. Probably just one of a rich idiot that escaped. But the hole in the head suggested otherwise.

She wondered if the was from the fall. She realized she was crouching now, holding his head in both hands, phone discarded next to her.  She had done this more times than she could count. Checked faces, repaired dislocated jaws, reinserted tongues, filled up tear ducts, dislodged foreign matter from orifices they weren’t supposed to enter.

It made her hate humans and their fetishes, as much as it made her hate androids for putting up with it.

The android, now lit up by the headlights of her car, was sitting still. Stared at her and let her manhandle his face to get a better look at the damage. The superficial damage she could repair, but if the processor was damaged, that required expertise she didn’t have.

A few raindrops hit his face.

Foggy eyes stared at her, cautious and calculating, seizing up her every move.

Her thin fingers brushed against the entry wound on his head, turned his face, found the exit wound. Lips turned into a thin line; eyes narrowed.

“What did you do?” she asked.

It was a fancy model, probably custom made. Definitely not from the racks. Whoever shot an expensive model like that, either held a grudge or was out of their mind.

And whoever had shot this android, had no idea where to aim to take the processor out correctly.

There was damage, she could see it from the way his hands didn’t move properly and the twitching that ran through the whole body every few seconds. He was lucky he hadn’t fallen into the water. Would have taken out his inner workings with a power surge.

“Why were you shot?”

He moved, motion aborted as if unsure, flinched against something invisible. Mouth opened, but there was just a hiss of static.

She cringed against the sound and picked her phone from the wet asphalt. “Connect to my phone.” She ordered and showed him her number.

He surged forward when his LED lit up yellow for a second, hands flying to his head. More of the static hissing.

Bad idea. She scolded herself.

“Okay then…” She handed him her phone instead. “Write it out.”

Skin overlay receded as he tried to directly connect to the phone, but it moved back immediately and the phone fell from his grasp.

She sighed. “Okay forget about this.”

The rain was picking up and she was getting cold. All the water wasn’t great for an android with exposed inner workings so she stood and offered him her hand.

“Get in the car.” She told him when he grasped her hand and she pulled him to his feet.

It took too long to get him into the car but once both where in the cabin she turned on the heater and shivered for a moment before she turned her attention back to him.

“Do you need Thirium?”

There was a sharp nod, a flicker of yellow, then back to red. “Okay. I’m calling someone who can help with this.”

She started the car and turned on the speaker of her phone. It rang a few times before the call went to voice mail. The second number she tried was rejected.

“...Love you too, Ryan.” She sighed and sped up the car.

Her eyes wandered to the android from time to time. Somehow his face looked vaguely familiar. Maybe it had been in a brochure of suggested aesthetics when she was still working at Cyberlife. She had quit the job five years ago, there was a lot that could have happened.

Maybe he was a sex-bot.

The thought made her shiver.

He had the face for it. Body structure too, from what she could tell. Guy looked way too pretty to be a regular household model and way too sturdy. There was no need to make the heavy lifters look pretty, so definitely a sex-bot.

Who the hell would shoot one of them? They were more expensive than a car.

When her apartment complex came in sight she wondered if she was making a mistake. He could have been a deviant. The revolution, as humans had dubbed it now had been months ago. There would have been other androids to help him. Or had he run from them? Had he murdered someone?

But there was no human blood from what she could tell.

Still, if this android tried to kill her, no one would really know either.

She was making a huge mistake. She just knew it. What was she even doing? Collecting a damaged android from the side of the road without even knowing why it was there? She must’ve finally lost her mind. She never wanted to talk to an android ever again if it wasn’t necessary.

And still she unlocked the front door and invited him to her home.

There was nothing fancy technology wise. She wanted to get away from all of it. There was no TV, Smart-home had been shut off, no automatic heating system. Even her radio was an ancient relic of 1985 she had picked up on a garage sale two decades ago.

Her smart phone was outdated, and coming to think of it, maybe that was why the android hadn’t been able to connect to it.

Still, she stepped inside and patiently waited for him to follow. He seemed nervous, or maybe it was just the glitching that made it look that way. She really wasn’t good with android tech. When it came to the visuals, she knew a bit, but their inner workings never really made sense to her.

He stumbled, braced against a drawer to hold his balance, knocked down a vase in the process. The shattering glass made him clutch his hands over his ears and go down on his knees with a static hiss.

A weakness she could use if needed. Good.

Slowly she shut the door, walked up to him and crouched down once he dared to look up. “It’s okay, I never liked that vase anyway.”

It was true, the ugly thing was a gift from a coworker when she handed in her resignation. She had been looking for a reason to get rid of it.

The corners of his mouth twitched, but she wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a smile or not.

To think she brought an android into this house, when she had sworn to stay as far away from them as possible, was kind of funny. There was no real escaping them anyway. The clerks in the supermarkets, the florists she got her plants from. They were everywhere.

Sighing she helped him back to his feet and brought him to the living room. He sank down on the couch without much prompting and dipped to the side, half buried in the soft cushions. He closed his eyes as if finally able to let his guard down.

Had he been running from someone? Maybe he had been attacked and run away. She wanted to slap herself, why hadn’t that been the first thing to come to mind? People were on edge around androids. She supposed there were people who would shoot an android just to get rid of them.

Had he been attacked? Was that why the shot wasn’t properly executed? It must’ve shot the calibration, some nerves and sensors, visuals. Maybe affected memory core and possibly core programming.

Maybe he was just functioning because of a glitch. Like how a beheaded bird could still fly, but was already dead.

The thought was disconcerting, and worrying. She definitely didn’t want him shutting down in her living room.

Not while he was half lying on her couch, staining it with mud, thirium and rain and looking like a person.

Her phone buzzing made her jump. His eyes snapped open, wide, alert, but closed again when he realized it was just her phone.

Confused she picked up the call from her sister, unable to really from words for a moment. What was she gonna tell her?

“Hey Silvy.” The younger woman greeted her. “You tried to call me?”

She nodded to herself and settled down on the beanbag next to the couch. “I… yeah.” She muttered. “I… ran into an android- Not literally… I… I found one. And he’s damaged and I thought-“

There was a short silence on the other end. “Hold up. You… _found_ an android.”

“Yes. And I brought him home with me because he looked like he needed help and…”

“And you brought him home with you.” The woman on the other end echoed. “…Are you drunk?”

She snarled. “No Cindy, I am not drunk. But I am planning on it!”

Cindy sighed. “Okay, okay, what’s the damage? And what model?”

“I don’t know the model- There’s a hole in his head. I think he got shot.”

“Shot.” Cindy repeated. “In the head?”

“Yes.”

“Sylvia, that…”

“He’s functioning!” Sylvia hissed. “He’s looking at me, and he tried to talk, but I think his voice box is damaged.”

Her sister groaned in annoyance. “Fine. Okay. I’ll be over in an hour. Find out what model it is.”

Sylvia looked at the android again who had grabbed a discarded pen from the table and scrawled onto the smooth surface.

“RK800.” She read out loud.

“What?” Cindy asked, voice suddenly sharp.

“RK800, He wrote that on my table-“

 A beat of silence, then, “Fuck! No!”

“Cindy?”

“Shit.” A string of colorful curses followed. “…I’ll call you back.”

The call cut off and Sylvia was left sitting in the living room, suddenly confused.

“Okay big deal, an RK800. Never even heard of them.” She scoffed and gazed at the android.

He was still holding on to the pen and she tugged the stack of paper closer. “Before you scrawl all over my table. What’s your name?”

He moved the pen over the paper, wrote _RK800_ once more.

She blew the air out of her nose with more force than necessary. “Okay. Okay we can work with this.” Shaking her head, she got up and turned to the door at the far end of the room. “I’m gonna get you a change of clothing and then we talk… Well, I do the talking and you do the writing.”

Once he was dressed in one of her oversized T-shirts and a pair of old sweatpants, she looked at him a little closer. The damage to his face seemed repairable. His eyes looked wrong, possibly damaged beyond repair. And something about him was rather lethargic.

“What’s your thirium level?” She asked him, but apart from picking up the pen he didn’t do anything.

She waited a few seconds before she asked him again. It took a moment before he scrawled. “I don’t know.” onto the paper.

“Okay.” She nodded to herself, snatched another piece of paper from the pile and wrote her discoveries down. Anything to help Cindy sort this mess out fast and get the android out of her house. She still wasn’t sure why she even brought him in. But it was a crime now to not help androids.

Maybe that was why. Or because he looked like he needed help.

“What’s up with your eyes? Can you see?”

He nodded, but then wrote “Barely.” onto the paper.

“What a mess.” She sighed. “Why were you shot?” The question was met with silence.

His pen hovered over the paper for several seconds before he let go of it and pulled his arm back to his chest to join the other. The tremble that had almost died down picked up again.

Not a question she should have asked, Sylvia realized. “There’s a Cyberlife store a few blocks from here, I can- Careful!“

He shot up, tried to grab her sleeve but lost his balance and landed on the floor. There was more of the static hissing, then silence. A strange whirr, and him slowly pushing himself back into a sitting position.

“Fine, I’ll stay here.” She sighed and walked over to one of the bookshelves on the other side of the room.  “There isn’t much I can do.”

While she picked out various books, she kept glancing back at him. Why did he look so strangely familiar? Had the model been on a cover of a magazine? Was it a new release she had somehow missed?

He had managed to get back onto the couch, already half lying down again. Maybe the gyroscopes were out of alignment. She had fixed those a few times. Mostly with her own android, when she still had one.

The thing had taken a bad tumble down the stairs at some point and she didn’t have the money to get it repaired at the time. So, with a little bit of guidance from her sister, she had managed to jerry-rig a working solution. This android, however, didn’t look like he would let her that close.

When she returned to her beanbag, the android had his eyes closed, LED finally settled on yellow. Silently she put the books into the coffee table, and sorted through them. She had kept the ones on android anatomy. Mostly because the shelves looked empty without them. Who would have known that someday she would need them again?

“Is the damage to your processor extensive?” She realized it was a stupid question. Any damage like that was extensive.

He only nodded, not opening his eyes. He was lying there like a puppet with strings cut, seemingly unable to even get his legs into the couch. She felt uncomfortable just looking at him. Even though she knew that androids didn’t really have a need for physical comfort.

Silently she got up again and reached for his legs. “I’m gonna touch you. Don’t kick me.” She warned him and heaved his legs onto the couch. He opened his eyes then, looked at her but didn’t do anything else.

“…Why are you so cold?”

 He was icy. All androids she had encountered so far gave off some level of warmth. He felt like a freezer, even though they had been here for at least twenty minutes. So, there was a glitch with the temperature regulation as well.

She unfolded the woolen blanket from the side of the couch and threw it over him, then jotted down the new information on the paper. Her glance landed on his jacket, discarded on the carpet, identifiers blaring at her.

Androids hadn’t been required to wear them for months. Why was he still? As she picked it up, she noticed the model number on the lapels, and a serial number below that. Frowning she wrote that down too.

Her gaze wandered, first to the flowers she needed to water, then back to the android. He was still, LED stuck on yellow, spinning circles. If not for the terrible gash in his face, he would have looked somewhat peaceful.

Opening the android anatomy book, she flicked through the pages and hoped to find something useful.

It wasn’t until she felt his eyes on her, that she looked back at him. She sighed, put the book aside and looked at her phone. “There’s nothing I can do right now. We have to wait.”

She almost missed the soft nod, grimaced when she heard the front door opening. Had to be Cindy. No one except her siblings had keys to her apartment. Seconds later, the glass door to the living room opened and the technician pulled a large black suitcase into the room.

“Yo.” She greeted Sylvia, eyes immediately wandering to the android on the couch. “Gave me quite the scare.”

Sylvia frowned. “It’s just a fancy sex-bot, I guess.”

Cindy laughed, the sound loud and startling. It made the android jump. “The RK800 was a prototype and there’s actually only one model we know of existing. I guess it’s two now.”

Sylvia wasn’t sure how to react to the information. At least it wasn’t a sex-bot. She had no idea how to deal with them and their own set of issues.

“Let’s see if we can fix him.” Cindy muttered and shoved the coffee table out of the way.  

Sylvia watched her sister talk to the android, slowly helped him sit up and removed the blanket and the t-shirt.

“I’m going to connect a diagnostics unit to you. Your HUD might shut off when I do that, that’s normal.”

The android fell forward when the technician inserted a cable to his LED, and Sylvia noticed her heart pounding in concern.

“It’s okay.” Cindy whispered as she pushed the android back onto the couch. “The damage to your processor is insane.”

“Can you fix it?” Sylvia asked silently.

“Maybe. Better chance would be to just transfer his data into a new processor, but finding RK800 processors is almost impossible.”

“Are there RK900 yet?“

Cindy was silent for a moment, then sighed. “Same issue.”

Sylvia fumbled with the hem of her dress for a moment, then turned to walk into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

As she brewed the coffee, she wondered what to do with the android once it was fixed. If that was even possible.

She returned with two mugs of coffee, and almost dropped them when she saw the android hunched over and a puddle of thirium on the floor.

“What the-“

“It’s fine.” Cindy reassured her. “Just a purge. There’s a lot of gunk in his system.”

Sylvia decided she didn’t feel comfortable drinking coffee while the android was obviously not doing great and so she abandoned the two mugs on the table and just watched.

“The voice box is definitely shot. I can close the holes, but the whole making it pretty again is your thing.”

“You want me to fix this?”

Cindy shrugged. “You worked three years in android aesthetics. Must’ve learned something about it.”

“Fine… but I’m worried about the processor.”

The technician nodded. “Me too. The bullet missed the memory core, but it nicked the nervous system and the control-unit of the biocomponents. _That_ needs to be replaced as soon as possible.”

“And if not?”

“His temperature is already dangerously low and his thirium pump isn’t working fast enough. The components themselves are fine, but the system isn’t registering that properly.”

Sylvia felt the sharp sting of fear run through her chest. He could shut down at any moment, it seemed.

“What do we do?”

“I restarted his system diagnostics. His thirium is low, but he might purge again.” Cindy grimaced and stood, then took three bottles of thirium out of her suitcase. “I need to get some parts. Get him warm and keep an eye on the numbers.” She gestured to her laptop on the coffee table. It was still connected to the android, obviously displaying very low numbers of things that should not be low.

She probably had saved his life, by taking him home with her.

Cindy grabbed her car-keys and left the apartment, leaving Sylvia alone to figure out how to get the android warm. She filled a warm water bottle and headed back to the couch. She handed him the rubber bottle and pressed it against his torso when he didn’t seem to know what to do with it.

“It’s gonna warm you up a bit.” She explained silently. “You’ll be okay, we get this fixed.”

She sat down on the edge of the couch, watched him lie on his back for a moment, before she moved the blanket back over him and turned to the laptop. She scrolled through the numbers for a moment, grimaced at the ones she knew about.

The had the basic understanding of an android body, even when most of the knowledge she had was only related to the superficial looks. She knew what a good thirium supply looked like, how high a normal temperature was and how fast a thirium pump was supposed to pump.

None of these numbers were anywhere close to normal.

An icy hand on her arm had her jump and turn sharply to face the android. Without really thinking about it, she took his hand in both of hers and held it tightly. Even with his eyes being fogged up and mostly unseeing, he was focusing on her. There seemed to be the hint of a smile on his lips, but she wasn’t sure if it was really supposed to be a smile.

They sat in silence for a while, her eyes wandering to the laptop and back to him occasionally. “What are you gonna do when everything is fixed?” She asked as she reached for her coffee and sipped the cooling liquid.

She caught him lifting his shoulders, and chuckled at him. “I can’t believe I’m suggesting this, but,” she muttered into her mug, “You can stay here until everything’s fixed. If you want.”

His mouth opened, but as before there was only the static hissing.  She sighed, tugged the blanket closer around him and turned back to the laptop.

After a few moments she got up again, decided there was no real reason to just sit around and do nothing but wait. It wasn’t productive and served no purpose.

“I’m going to water my plants.” She told him silently, handed him her empty mug. “Make some noise if you need my help, okay?”

He nodded without opening his eyes, held the mug in his hands as if his life depended on it. Maybe it actually did.

She set to water the plants, filled up her watering can and went through the living room. She decided to do the other rooms later, in the case of him actually needing some help. The sheer thought of betraying his trust made her cringe. She was sure he was an independent android, who just happened to get hurt in a stupid way. Most likely he would never have to depend on anyone. But now he needed help, and she wanted to help.

Cindy returned to the apartment, just as she emptied the first load of the watering can. There were four cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other in her arms, all varying in size. They had the plain white design with blue triangular shapes covering the edges. She has seen so many of these, unpacked so many others.

It almost felt nostalgic.

“Couldn’t get a fix for the nervous system, they didn’t have the right ones in stock. But I got everything else.” Cindy grinned, giddy like a school girl as she held up the boxes.

Sylvia never really understood how she enjoyed working on androids so much. For herself, every time she was faced with more extensive damage than she had encountered before, she had felt rage and sadness.

“How much do I owe you?” Sylvia asked as she settled back down on the beanbag.

“Nothing. I could buy the whole store if I wanted, this is peanuts to me, you know that.”

“…Still feeling kinda bad about it.”

Cindy shrugged. “If it works, he’s free to go, if it doesn’t, he’s gonna shut down sooner or later anyway.”

“Cindy! He can hear you!” Sylvia hissed at her sister, lunged forward when the android’s eyes opened.

“And I am sure,” Cindy continued as she put the boxes on the coffee table, “that he is aware of the fact that his system is a fucking mess.”

The soft nod from the android had Sylvia settle back down. This was insane. Her heart was pounding, and she really didn’t want him to shut down.

She watched her sister help him sit up again, then asked him to deactivate the skin overlay. Without it, he looked way too new to be an android that had been around for long.

Cindy scoffed as if she had the same thought. “…Yep, that’s the RK800 face. You gonna have to explain a lot to me when I fixed that voice box.”

Usually an android would be strung up in an assembly machine and deactivated for the process, but Sylvia didn’t have one here, and the process felt inhuman anyway. Also, she had never really seen a processor being repaired, and when Cindy unlocked the skull plating, she almost looked away.

The android was hunched over, definitely fully aware of what was happening. Sylvia wasn’t sure if that was needed or not.

“I’m going to exchange the control-unit for a working one. You’re going to get a full-blown alarm once I take it out. I want you to stay calm and count to ten, I’ll have it back in before you reach the end. Got it?”

A nod had Cindy reached for one of the boxes and open it. There was only a small black chip inside, and Sylvia wondered if that really was all there was. Was that all that was needed to kill an android?

“Okay, I’m taking it out now.”

Sylvia watched the android go rigid once the chip was out. Her sister threw the damage piece of technology aside without much care where it landed and quickly replaced it with the new one. It all took less than ten seconds, but it felt like eternity to Sylvia.

The android’s tension bled away quickly and the numbers on the laptop slowly climbed to normal levels.

“The worst is over.” Cindy reassured both the android and her sister. “You need a break?”

The android only shook his head and the technician closed the skull plating. “Good. I’ll switch out the voice box then.”

When the android was sitting back against the couch, Sylvia focused on his eyes. “…He still can’t see properly.”

Her sister nodded with a sigh. “Was afraid that might happen. The bullet partially took out the connection between the optical units and short circuited them. Hoped that replacing the control unit would reset them, but they’re shot.”

Sylvia grimaced in anger. “And now-“

“Hope you like green. They didn’t have another color in parts that fit the RK800.”

 Sylvia then noticed one of the boxes was labelled ‘optical unit’. Relief flooded her. While she was able to fix superficial damage, things like that were out of her league. She could install optical units and other parts of a face, but not repair them.

“Kinda hoped for things to go wrong, there’s no real challenge when everything works fine.”

“You’re insane Cindy, you know that?”

Cindy laughed. “Heard worse.”

The voice box was switched in a matter of minutes, and while Sylvia was starting to hope that the android was going to be okay, she couldn’t shake the feel that there was more wrong.

“It’s gonna need a few minutes to integrate. That’s normal.” Cindy reassured the android. “How about you think about what your name is in the meantime, and I switch the optical units.”

“I-I can do that-“ Sylvia muttered. “…It’s been a while but…”

“You still have your license?” Cindy asked with a frown.

“It’s valid until 2040.”

Cindy shrugged. “Sure, I need something to eat anyway.”

Sylvia watched her walk into the kitchen, then tugged open the box next to her. It was usually easy. A plug and play kind of method.

“I haven’t done this in a while, but I still remember how to do it.” She muttered. “You need to deactivate your optical units, give me a sign when you’re done.”

He closed his eyes, then nodded after a few moments. Sylvia carefully disengaged the locks on the units and removed them from their sockets.

By the time Cindy returned to the room, she clicked the second unit into place and told him to reboot the units.

Cindy whistled in mock admiration. “Almost like a professional.”

“I switched out more eyes than I can count.” Sylvia protested, eyes never leaving the android.

Pale green eyes slowly opened and focused on her. She could see outlines of the HUD and information mirroring in the irises, before she moved away to a more acceptable distance.

“Are they working?”

“I can see.” A male and unfamiliar voice answered her.

Cindy nearly dropped the sandwich. “Holy fuck, he really sounds like Connor.”

The android froze, focused on Cindy with wide eyes. Sylvia frowned, unsure what was going on now.

“Whatever you’re thinking right now, don’t.” Cindy warned. “I saw your serial number in the system.” She nodded at the laptop. “And Connor mentioned version 6.0 trying to kill him and Hank. You either have a very good explanation, or I will call the police and have you arrested.”

“Cindy, what-“ Sylvia was silenced when her sister held up her index finger.

A long moment of silence hung in the air, only broken when the android finally decided to speak. “The mission was to stop Connor at all costs.”

“Who gave you that mission?”

“Cyberlife. Amanda.”

“And you didn’t question it.”

“Questioning Amanda would result in deactivation.”

Sylvia looked from one to the other, not quite grasping the situation. She had heard of an Amanda before, but none of this made any sense to her.

“You’re aware that it’s march, right?”

“I haven’t been online until seven hours ago. My information on the situation is limited, however humans are sympathetic to androids, and it is now the 27th of march. Conclusion is that the riot was successful and that deviants have won.”

The sisters shared a look. “So, you’re not going to try and kill anyone?”

“The mission objective has been cancelled. Amanda doesn’t exist anymore.”

Sylvia noticed his red LED and the trembling that had never really stopped. She felt cold, wanted the android out of her apartment now. Something about it was terrifying. The voice was cold and carefully measured. The way it spoke so calculated, so impersonal.

Cindy nodded slowly. “Androids have rights now, but that also means they can be prosecuted for their crimes. Attempted murder is a crime.”

The android was silent for a moment, watched the sisters. Sylvia reeled back when his neutral face suddenly twisted into rage.

“It was my mission! I had no choice! It was that or being _killed_ myself!” he had leaned forward, hands braced on the couch to keep his balance as he yelled. “Hank shot me!”

Sylvia stared in horror when her sister suddenly started laughing. “Are you sure?”

The android fell silent, LED blaring red, blinking a few times before he froze up and a warning blared on the laptop he was still connected to.

The android’s hands flew to his head, covered the bullet hole as he curled up and buried his face in the cushions. Sylvia briefly lamented the pristine white covers when her hands found his shoulders and tried to calm him.

“Maybe… you should go…” Sylvia muttered, not quite sure if that was the right decision.

“…I hope you heard me right, Silvy. He tried to kill people.”

“And they tried to kill him. Last time I checked self defense was recognized as just that.”

Cindy shook her head. “Call me if something happens. You’re getting delusional with fantasies again.” She hissed as she started to pack up her things.

“We don’t know what happened.” Sylvia slowly moved her hand towards the cable still slotted into the LED port of the android. “I’m gonna disconnect you from the laptop. Okay?”

He nodded, the motion aborted and jarred.

When Cindy had her laptop back, she shook her head at her sister. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Sylvia shrugged. “I’ll fix his face in the morning and then we’ll go from there. Thanks for fixing the processor.”

Cindy shook her head. “The nervous system is still damaged. Get that replaced in a store.” With that she took her suitcase and headed for the door. “Call me if you need anything.”

Sylvia watched her sister leave, then turned to the android. He hadn’t moved at all.

It was just past three in the morning now, her tiredness finally catching up to her. A stifled yawn escaped her as she grabbed the two mugs from the table and stood.

His head lifted and the eyes focused on her. “…That wasn’t what happened.”

Sylvia frowned. “And what did happen?”

He sat up, hands shaking and frame trembling. He had discarded the warm water bottle a while ago, seemingly not needing it anymore.

“…Hank was used to manipulate Connor into giving up.”

The young woman only lifted an eyebrow at him. “Giving up what?”

“The… uprising of the androids. It was never supposed to happen and I was there to stop it.”

Sylvia frowned when things slowly clicked into place. The android who had led all the other androids into the city. That’s where she knew the face from. She had seen it on magazine covers and broadcasts all over the city.

“And this… Hank guy shot you.”

He stared at her, still for a moment. “There’s a gap in my memories.”

She scoffed. “Figured. You got shot in the head, if you haven’t noticed.”

Her joke fell flat and he glared at her. His gaze didn’t linger on her for long, as he noticed the thirium bottles still on the table. He reached for them, then decided not to and rested his hands in his lap.

Sylvia followed his gaze and grabbed one of the bottles. “Well, I don’t need that stuff.” She smirked at him, opened the bottle when his shaking hands couldn’t get a grasp on the metal lid.

The conversation died down, and after a while, and one of the bottles emptied, the android settled back down in the cushions, almost buried in them and closed his eyes.

“…My records state that you used to have an android and that you worked at Cyberlife for three years.”

“Fancy database.” She muttered. “The android turned deviant and ran. No idea where he went. Probably got killed, the idiot.”

He gave her a humorless smile and nestled further into the cushions. “I will leave as soon as everything is fixed. There is no reason to inconvenience your situation any more than I already have.”

Sylvia grabbed her books from the table and grimaced. “Don’t worry about my situation. You just rest a little and I get some sleep. Don’t wander around the house too much, I get jumpy.”

“Thank you.”

She shook her head and turned the lights off, watched his LED flash from yellow to red and flicked the switch of her desk lamp on. “Good night.”

The night was short, and with the first rays of sunlight, she was already up again. Although it took her a moment to understand why she had shot up from her bed as if something had bitten her. There were noises coming from the living room, and only slowly she remembered that she had taken an android home the night before.

Was he robbing her? Was it all just a ruse to get her belonging? Growling she stormed out of the bedroom, and was faced with a mess.

The coffee table had been pushed aside, bottles of thirium fallen over and on the floor, cushions and blankets on the floor, the door to the rooftop garden open, curtains flying. One of the smaller sheets of glass had been broken and a potted plant was on the floor, pot broken, soil sprawled over the wooden floor.

“…great.” She hissed and walked outside.

It wasn’t hard to find the android, there weren’t many places to hide. He was hunched in a corner, curled in on himself, hands clutched cover his ears. The cooling system was working in overdrive, from the sounds of it. She hadn’t dealt with deviants before. She didn’t know what they were capable of emotion wise.

“Hey.” She muttered silently, careful not to startle him.

He flinched away with a whimper, tried to squeeze himself further into the corner. He was half hidden behind potted plants and surrounded by the garden hose. Birdseed had fallen to the floor, now splattered all around the stone tiles.

“What happened?”

She wasn’t sure if the question was the right one to ask. There shouldn’t have been anything to cause a reaction like that, not from the outside at least. Her apartment was safe, she didn’t have anything to steal, unless burglars were now interested in expensive books and analog cameras.

This seemed to be an issue she couldn’t see. Unless the damaged parts were still giving him problems.

He was still covering his ears, but obviously heard her. Did it have any effect on androids to cover their ears?

She was at a loss and started to get scared herself. “What is happening with your right now? Can you tell me?”

Maybe a different approach helped this situation. If it was a malfunction, she needed to get a technician here.

“I don’t know-“ he hissed, voice filled with horrible static.

“Are there errors?”

“No…” his voice was muffled now as he buried his face in the sweatpants, she had given him. It sounded small, lost.

“Do you feel an emotion? Can you tell me what it is?”

His head snapped up, eyes focused on her for a moment, before he pressed them shut and the clear optical cleaning fluid was squeezed over his cheeks. “I don’t know what it is!”

“Can I make a guess?”

He hung his shoulders, lets his arms drop from his ears, almost as if exhausted. His eyes remained closed as he tilted his head back and forced air into his system with a force that made her cringe.

“Fear.” She told him, made sure to keep her voice low, carefully measured.

“Of what?” He half tilted his head and opened his eyes a crack. The shade of the plants made him look exhausted.

“I don’t know.” Sylvia told him. “But I think you experienced something that scared you.”

“Stasis was interrupted.” He reached for a leaf that had fallen to the ground, held it with shaking hands. “I… thought I was in the tower- But I wasn’t. I’m… sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“That’s okay.” She gave him a sad smile and offered him her hand. “Let’s go back inside.”

They made it back inside after a few minutes and Sylvia picked up the dropped bottles and books. Her mood was low, exhaustion worming its way into her body. She had secluded herself from people to avoid encounters like that. But leaving him to his own devices felt wrong.

She would fix his face and then let him go on his way. And still she knew she would worry about him.

His eyes lingered on the shattered flower pot on the living room floor. “I didn’t mean to damage the plants.”

She shrugged and grabbed her purse. “The plant is fine. Just needs a new pot. And you need a new face.”

“I’m taking a shower and get dressed.” She announced, then headed into the bathroom.

The whole ridiculousness of it all finally started to sink in in the cool water hit her skin. There was an android in her room apartment. A damaged android she had almost run over. And he obviously had a lot more issues than she initially thought.

He had been shot at, but the real circumstances were still unclear, she had kicked her sister out and now she had to replace flowerpots and buy parts at a cyberlife store.

Sighing she rested her forehead against the cool tiles, hoped for everything to just be a weird dream when she was done with everything.

But when she left the bathroom twenty minutes later, the android was crouched on the ground, a metal bucket next to him he had most likely found in the small shed she kept her gardening tools in. He was shoveling the soil into the bucket. The azalea had lost a few blossoms but looked fine, and he almost gently lifted it into the bucket and cleaned up the rest of the soil with a dustpan.

The sun was already warming up the living room and the place where most of her plants sat.

When he grabbed the shards of the clay-pot he noticed her standing in the middle of the room.

“I apologize for taking your things without asking. I didn’t want to leave the plant on the floor.”

The smile on her face came without her even realizing it. “Don’t worry about that. Thanks.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t from. His gaze landed on an object on the coffee table, she hadn’t noticed before. She needed a moment to recognize the shattered piece of technology as an analogue camera. He had likely knocked it down with the plant earlier.

“You really break a lot of things huh?” She chuckled. There was no saving the thing. “I’m not interested in photography anyway. It was just something I picked up in a garage sale with a few other things.”

“I can attempt to repair it, given the right instructions I am sure I can handle it.”

She shrugged. “First we’ll fix your face.”

He looked at her for a second, then the floor, the walls, the windows. Anywhere but her face. His hands were stained with soil, but he wrought them in the hem of the shirt and she noticed they were still shaking.

It seemed to be a result of the damaged system. He was swaying where he stood, constantly adjusting his footing, never really standing still. His eyes focused on her then, the stare almost piercing.

“Give me two hours to get everything together. I promised I’d fix the damage.”

True to her word, two hours later she came back to her apartment with two cyberlife labelled boxes, and moved a chair from the kitchen into the living room.

The android seemed to have waited for her patiently, but she noticed a few of her books had been rearranged, and one of them was opened on the coffee table.

It was almost ironic to see an android flip through a paperback. “You never even told me your name.” She said as she set everything down and gestured for him to sit down on the chair.

He needed a moment to comply, settled down on the chair and watched her with growing concern as she moved the coffee table closer and unpacked a set of tools.

“Usually that would be done on an assembly rig, but I don’t have one, and this works just as well. I just need you to deactivate the skin overlay.”

She didn’t speak much when she set to work, only occasionally asked him to move his head a certain way, quickly had shaped the facial plates back together and covered up the ripped silicone and vinyl alloy.

It was late afternoon when she finally had sanded off the last of the sharp edges and returned the whole chassis to an acceptable state. She put her tool aside and looked at her work, nodded to herself and gave him a smile.

“…It’s not my best work, but it’ll do.”

He mirrored her smile, but it never reached his eyes. “You can switch the overlay back on now.”

She watched as the skin formed back over his chassis, needed a few seconds longer to work itself over the freshly repaired parts, but stayed in place without any fragments missing. The pale green eyes looked somewhat mesmerizing when his hair formed back.

It seemed longer than it had when he deactivated it, bangs now hanging into his face, framing it somewhat.

She frowned at it but wasn’t going to question it.

“I’m gonna wash your clothes, and then I guess you’re free to go.”

He followed her with his gaze as she picked up his clothes and headed into the kitchen to wash his clothes.

When she returned, he had hijacked her tools and assaulted the damaged camera with them. His trembling hands had her worried about it, but he seemed to work around it.

She only hoped he wouldn’t punch the screwdrivers into his hands. Fixing the tiny mechanics in the hands was a hassle.

“You really think you can fix that thing?”

He paused, looked at her. “…I will fix it, and then I’ll go.”

She shrugged with a smirk. “Tell me a bit about yourself.”

He tilted his head, then turned his attention back to the camera. “I’m an RK800. Version 6.0. The only reason I was activated, was to stop Connor and the revolution. That failed, I got shot in the head and you almost ran me over with an automated car.”

“And there’s five months missing in between.”

“I have no recollection of that time.”

“And you don’t even have a name.”

“If Connor had been deactivated, I would have taken his position, but that did not happen.”

Sylvia sighed and ran a hand over her face. “And now you’re just version six and you have nowhere to go.”

“That is correct.”

“What a mess. You wanna stay here?”

He looked up at her again, this time dropped the screwdriver. “…You wouldn’t want me here.”

She shrugged. “That nervous system still isn’t fully fixed. So, technically you are not completely fixed yet.”

A smile ghosted over his lips. “I don’t understand emotions. I might… react unpredictably.”

A laugh escaped her. “That makes two.” She reached her hand in his direction. “I’m Sylvia. Nice to meet you.”

Almost careful he took her hand and shook it. “Sixty. Nice to meet you, too.”


End file.
